Skill Check Problems

[Kid Gloves]

Why is it that skill checks get progressively harder as the game goes along for actions that are essentially the same thing?

Jump a gap in Act 1 : athletics +10 check.
Jump an identical gap in Act 3 : athletics -50 check.

Why?!

This game isn't the only one guilty of doing this, but it is guilty.

[TaKo]

the answer is quite simply, arbitrary challege in order to have one at all

if skillchecks dont get progressively harder they might aswell not exist a lot of the time

not to say that owlcat implemented them in a good way, they didnt, the solution is to either turn someone into a skillcheck monkey or try to keep a balanced party that can perform well in any scenario skillcheck-wise

notably having at least 1 character with very hight base int and 1 with very high base fellowship goes a long way

[talemore]

Focus on 1 skill for each member.

Athletic(E) , xeno lore(H) , demolition(A) , imperium lore(MC) ,( logic or tech use) P) awareness (I)

There are talents for skills. Nobody would invest on multiple talents.

The skill check on ship do not matter.

The game doesn't have a skill monkey because skills is something everyone already know. This is something that likely was scrapped since (A) has a talent from Warrior when she is a soldier. Without medicae skill knowledge you can't use medkits, so why wouldn't all skills be blank until given a skill focus.

The game setting a trap that people who know they can't do it will attempt to do what they can't accomplish.

Athletics is the one of them all. But wouldn't it be a way to make sure there is a reason to have a melee or a warrior.
Admit it, warriors are obsolete and swords are inferior to guns. A soldier is better with swords.

Forget to collect all skills, if they pass they will.

Tech use and logic is needed to obtain items.

Demolition and xeno lore are used for traps

Awareness is likely more important than demolition since you need to know the trap is there.

[Kid Gloves]

Originally posted by REhorror:

. What is boring is expecting you to get out of every situation ever with no surprise or challenge.

On that we agree, but to me the current system is exactly that. There's nothing exciting in a hyper-specialist dealing with a problem they're hyper-specialised in.

[REhorror]

Originally posted by Kid Gloves:

Originally posted by REhorror:

. What is boring is expecting you to get out of every situation ever with no surprise or challenge.

On that we agree, but to me the current system is exactly that. There's nothing exciting in a hyper-specialist dealing with a problem they're hyper-specialised in.

Uh, no actually, it's VERY exciting to have a team of hyper-specialists where they can do their specialist thing.

It's what team building is about.

[Pixie1001]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Originally posted by Kid Gloves:

I get the feeling we're missing each other's points.

To be clear: I've played through the vast majority of the game on the higher difficulty. I've used the options - including the options that don't involve lowering the difficulty.

Act 5 I didn't get much into because ... there are other bugs. :|

What I'm saying is it feels arbitrary and nonsensical, not that it's too hard.

Some fairly simple changes Owlcat could make would be:

1) removing the 'you only get one go at this' limit on many of the more incidental checks. Come up with a better model than 'nope.'

2) being more consistent in the application of resource-expenditure-to-overcome-check system. Make it clearer why I might want to use a resource.

3) rethinking/reworking the way failure maluses are applied and removed, to make them interesting rather than another excuse to reload your save game.

4) having better overall handling of failure, so that early game skill checks can actually be 'too hard' for the low level skill usage, meaning you get to experience progress-with-failure and then enjoy progress-without-failure as a result of skill investment and levelling up.

I would much rather see -50 athletics checks in the early game than meaningless action checks in the late game. I'd also want to see a better suite of options for how I can overcome that -50 check, rather than just level-up 'git gud.'

Good stories / adventures / whatever are about -overcoming- failure, not reloading failure and potentially messing with the difficulty settings or re-spec.

I'm currently playing on Unfair, and when I fail a check, I either reload, or I come back later when I have sufficient skill levels. Not a problem for me.

And it's hard to take you seriously when you put up "gid gud" here, is this boiling down to your inconvenience of NOT wanting to save/reload rather than your problems with the game?

CRPG is all about save & reload, always have been.

And AGAIN, you can just set the difficulty to be easier, as if you find it to be hard/inconsistent/annoying/"git guder" or whatever word people say about difficulty nowadays.

I mean, I'm kinda with Kid Gloves here - like sure it isn't game breaking, but when your lever for skill checks is 'save and reload so you can experience the narrative or get an important piece of loot integral for balance and reward pacing' that's objectively bad design.

Cheesing shouldn't be mandatory in order to play the game as intended - nor should it be required that you need to download 3rd party mods like toybox in order to respec your whole party just to remove overlapping skill proficiencies everytime you want to try out a different character in a party management focused game.

Obviously skill monkey characters like Jae and Pasqual exist to offset this somewhat, but it's still a very noticeable issue that often can't really be overcame by just 'playing better' - either you have the party comp. to pass the checks, or you don't.

I guess it is kind of a player feeling vs. good gameplay issue though - the current design does a very good job of making you feel like all your party members are playing an important out of character role - Pasqual physical interests with locked chests, Argenta walks up to traps to disarm them and plays a voice bark when SHE spots them, using her awareness. The tooltip goes to pains to point out that Cassia is to thank for your 90% success chance on a Persuasion check.

When you get down to it, it's kinda stupid and arbitrary from a gameplay perspective- a much better implantation would just be to design 5 or so reasonable balanced skills and have your character pick 3 of them for the playthrough. But then the problem solving party fantasy would be gone.

Maybe they need to nix skill checks entirely though, and just have the characters perform tasks on a priority based on how good they're meant to be at a task in the narrative?

The main issue though as Kid Glove points out though, seems to be that the game doesn't use Fail Forwards design for many of its skill checks though, which has become a pillar of modern pnp RPGs and DMing philosophy. Failing a check should never just stone wall you.

I guess some of these issue are kinda addressed obviously - there's omni-tools and demolition kits this time around to open stuff you don't have the skills for, which is a big improvement over their pathfinder games, and athletics checks to access secret areas will often give your tank an injury that makes the following fight harder, but lets you repeat the check.

But it still feels kinda rough not having all the skills, when you know you very easily could if you only you were just willing to play with a few mediocre companions you feel are getting stale, especially when there isn't really any unique dialogue for failing like in a game like BG3 where you can feel like you're at least getting a unique experience- instead the 'fail forward' is paying a resource cost other players don't need to worry about.

[REhorror]

Originally posted by Pixie1001:

Originally posted by REhorror:

I'm currently playing on Unfair, and when I fail a check, I either reload, or I come back later when I have sufficient skill levels. Not a problem for me.

And it's hard to take you seriously when you put up "gid gud" here, is this boiling down to your inconvenience of NOT wanting to save/reload rather than your problems with the game?

CRPG is all about save & reload, always have been.

And AGAIN, you can just set the difficulty to be easier, as if you find it to be hard/inconsistent/annoying/"git guder" or whatever word people say about difficulty nowadays.

I mean, I'm kinda with Kid Gloves here - like sure it isn't game breaking, but when your lever for skill checks is 'save and reload so you can experience the narrative or get an important piece of loot integral for balance and reward pacing' that's objectively bad design.

Cheesing shouldn't be mandatory in order to play the game as intended - nor should it be required that you need to download 3rd party mods like toybox in order to respec your whole party just to remove overlapping skill proficiencies everytime you want to try out a different character in a party management focused game.

Obviously skill monkey characters like Jae and Pasqual exist to offset this somewhat, but it's still a very noticeable issue that often can't really be overcame by just 'playing better' - either you have the party comp. to pass the checks, or you don't.

I guess it is kind of a player feeling vs. good gameplay issue though - the current design does a very good job of making you feel like all your party members are playing an important out of character role - Pasqual physical interests with locked chests, Argenta walks up to traps to disarm them and plays a voice bark when SHE spots them, using her awareness. The tooltip goes to pains to point out that Cassia is to thank for your 90% success chance on a Persuasion check.

When you get down to it, it's kinda stupid and arbitrary from a gameplay perspective- a much better implantation would just be to design 5 or so reasonable balanced skills and have your character pick 3 of them for the playthrough. But then the problem solving party fantasy would be gone.

Maybe they need to nix skill checks entirely though, and just have the characters perform tasks on a priority based on how good they're meant to be at a task in the narrative?

The main issue though as Kid Glove points out though, seems to be that the game doesn't use Fail Forwards design for many of its skill checks though, which has become a pillar of modern pnp RPGs and DMing philosophy. Failing a check should never just stone wall you.

I guess some of these issue are kinda addressed obviously - there's omni-tools and demolition kits this time around to open stuff you don't have the skills for, which is a big improvement over their pathfinder games, and athletics checks to access secret areas will often give your tank an injury that makes the following fight harder, but lets you repeat the check.

But it still feels kinda rough not having all the skills, when you know you very easily could if you only you were just willing to play with a few mediocre companions you feel are getting stale, especially when there isn't really any unique dialogue for failing like in a game like BG3 where you can feel like you're at least getting a unique experience- instead the 'fail forward' is paying a resource cost other players don't need to worry about.

I'm not sure what's the good design then? Making sure you never fail a check whatever because it scales to your level?

The save & reload cheese is basically I want to get the stuff, I can just accept that I fail the check and move on with it.

Or I can just reduce the difficulty and basically get to the first part (never fail a check, ever).

[talemore]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Originally posted by Pixie1001:

I mean, I'm kinda with Kid Gloves here - like sure it isn't game breaking, but when your lever for skill checks is 'save and reload so you can experience the narrative or get an important piece of loot integral for balance and reward pacing' that's objectively bad design.

Cheesing shouldn't be mandatory in order to play the game as intended - nor should it be required that you need to download 3rd party mods like toybox in order to respec your whole party just to remove overlapping skill proficiencies everytime you want to try out a different character in a party management focused game.

Obviously skill monkey characters like Jae and Pasqual exist to offset this somewhat, but it's still a very noticeable issue that often can't really be overcame by just 'playing better' - either you have the party comp. to pass the checks, or you don't.

I guess it is kind of a player feeling vs. good gameplay issue though - the current design does a very good job of making you feel like all your party members are playing an important out of character role - Pasqual physical interests with locked chests, Argenta walks up to traps to disarm them and plays a voice bark when SHE spots them, using her awareness. The tooltip goes to pains to point out that Cassia is to thank for your 90% success chance on a Persuasion check.

When you get down to it, it's kinda stupid and arbitrary from a gameplay perspective- a much better implantation would just be to design 5 or so reasonable balanced skills and have your character pick 3 of them for the playthrough. But then the problem solving party fantasy would be gone.

Maybe they need to nix skill checks entirely though, and just have the characters perform tasks on a priority based on how good they're meant to be at a task in the narrative?

The main issue though as Kid Glove points out though, seems to be that the game doesn't use Fail Forwards design for many of its skill checks though, which has become a pillar of modern pnp RPGs and DMing philosophy. Failing a check should never just stone wall you.

I guess some of these issue are kinda addressed obviously - there's omni-tools and demolition kits this time around to open stuff you don't have the skills for, which is a big improvement over their pathfinder games, and athletics checks to access secret areas will often give your tank an injury that makes the following fight harder, but lets you repeat the check.

But it still feels kinda rough not having all the skills, when you know you very easily could if you only you were just willing to play with a few mediocre companions you feel are getting stale, especially when there isn't really any unique dialogue for failing like in a game like BG3 where you can feel like you're at least getting a unique experience- instead the 'fail forward' is paying a resource cost other players don't need to worry about.

I'm not sure what's the good design then? Making sure you never fail a check whatever because it scales to your level?

The save & reload cheese is basically I want to get the stuff, I can just accept that I fail the check and move on with it.

Or I can just reduce the difficulty and basically get to the first part (never fail a check, ever).

You think it should be a crafting tool?
Persuade a robot with logic why it should join you and kill its friends. And you have to do it in sequence 2 times. 1st time persuade you are friendly and 2nd time that your are a logical person. Then 2nd round it will warn you that it will leave the team 4th round it will leave the team since you are not a robot.

Demolition part of awareness. First have to find the trap and then dismantle.

But you can not just dismantle the trap you have to craft an explosive device with demolish skill check to destroy the trap and consume a grenade and can as well make an athletic check to jump over the trap. But if you dismantle the trap you get back the grenade you used but it will be a random grenade.

Xeno lore used to extract chance to find xeno flesh. The flesh is then used to change colors of your eyes

Medicae increase poison chance to cause fatigue and poison to heal wounds at chance of being posioned.
In desperate times even alcohol heal wounds

[REhorror]

Originally posted by talemore:

Originally posted by REhorror:

I'm not sure what's the good design then? Making sure you never fail a check whatever because it scales to your level?

The save & reload cheese is basically I want to get the stuff, I can just accept that I fail the check and move on with it.

Or I can just reduce the difficulty and basically get to the first part (never fail a check, ever).

You think it should be a crafting tool?
Persuade a robot with logic why it should join you and kill its friends. And you have to do it in sequence 2 times. 1st time persuade you are friendly and 2nd time that your are a logical person. Then 2nd round it will warn you that it will leave the team 4th round it will leave the team since you are not a robot.

Demolition part of awareness. First have to find the trap and then dismantle.

But you can not just dismantle the trap you have to craft an explosive device with demolish skill check to destroy the trap and consume a grenade and can as well make an athletic check to jump over the trap. But if you dismantle the trap you get back the grenade you used but it will be a random grenade.

Xeno lore used to extract chance to find xeno flesh. The flesh is then used to change colors of your eyes

Medicae increase poison chance to cause fatigue and poison to heal wounds at chance of being posioned.
In desperate times even alcohol heal wounds

So basically, some stats can do more things.

Not sure if that would solve OP's problems, I'm neutral on it.

[Kid Gloves]

Good game design starts from assuming the player is going to fail and making sure the game experience works with that. Success should be a luxury, not a mandatory requirement for a good game experience.

I come back to the arbitrariness of the difficulties. I've no problem with an athletics check on an icy moon in the dark while chaos cultists are doing weird in the area being a -50 check, but if that's the case then why isn't an athletics check in an active warzone in a recently shelled building that is currently under attack by chaos culists not also a -50 just because it is in act 1?

The answer is because in act 1, -50 is pretty much a guaranteed failure.

If I were GMing it, I'd say to the players: deal with it.

But the game doesn't provide us with tools to deal with it, it just expects us to level up. Or, in the case of act 1 when we can't have levelled up because we only just started playing, makes the check easy anyway.

End result: arbitrary skill check values.

What that means, though, is it becomes impoosible to look at a situation and gauge the difficulty. It becomes impossible to look at a character build and say to yourself 'that's high enough athletics for most situations' - because the numbers just keep inflating so the skill levels have to as well.

As a result, you are forced into these cookie-cutter builds that in turn force you into a cookie-cutter party. I can't pull Argenta out of my party line-up unless the person I replace her with is capable of both the same kind of combat performance AND demolitions skill checks. Or, in other words, is an Argenta-clone.

Act 3 really runs into problems because of this - not only with the skill checks and failure mechanic resulting in potentially the stupidest player death with that weird hunter scene, but also practically relying on you having Abelard and Argenta in your party because - I suspect - the testing never encountered them not being in the party, given it's so bonkers-inefficient to dare try any combination apart from the officially sanctioned one.

Which, I guess, is on-brand at least. :)

Death to the heretic that dare use unsanctioned companions!

[REhorror]

I mean, is success a luxury in this game?
You can achieve success many ways.
If you can't pass the check:
1. Save & reload trick.
2. Ignore it and go back for it later.
3. Equip items to boost your skills and affect the percentage.
4. Fail it and move on, accept your consequences.
5. Lower the difficulty.

There are so many ways to achieve success in the game.

[Kid Gloves]

I'm not asking for success, I'm asking for non-arbitrary, non-inflation-driven skill checks that have consistency.

If I wanted to just win everything all the time with zero effort, I'd play it on story mode and use a mod to set all my character skills to 250.

I probably also wouldn't be making a case for why skill difficulties in act 1 should be -50 checks, yet I did.

Tell me again how I can succeed super easily, because that's clearly what I'm asking for. :)

[REhorror]

Well, one easiest way is to simply go to the Difficulty and turn the modifier for Skillcheck into the positive realm and get that as high as possible until you think it's right for you.

[pascal.difolco]

Originally posted by Kid Gloves:

Why is it that skill checks get progressively harder as the game goes along for actions that are essentially the same thing?

Jump a gap in Act 1 : athletics +10 check.
Jump an identical gap in Act 3 : athletics -50 check.

Why?!

This game isn't the only one guilty of doing this, but it is guilty.

You can still imagine the second gap is bigger, or more treacherous...
They have to up the challenge as you progress, else if you have say 70% to pass a check at early levels you will get 100% in all checks as soon as Act2
Your party skill get way better, by end of Act2 I think the only skill that I have below 100 is Warp Lore, and I already have absurd 200 like levels of Pasqal TechUse and Jae Imperium Lore

[Maestro Rugosa]

Originally posted by Pixie1001:

if they kept all the skill checks the same, your characteristics would eventually get so high that even u trained party members could do them with 100% accuracy, at which point, what's even the point of having them in the game?

Exactly! There is no point. No skill check in any game has ever been satisfying to me.

Keep them in place for players like you who appreciate them, but please let us do away with them if we think they are a waste of time and are prepared to tweak things in Settings.

For some bizarre reason, even in Story mode, they still impose idiotic -60% penalties to checks.

And the custom difficulty slider only boosts checks by +30%. Why oh why?

I admit I'm a weakling prepared to cheat on these endless tedious tests to get what I want. Why not permit +100% on the Story mode skill check slider??